Is the Magic Mike diet healthy?

Recently on the Kelly Clarkson Show, Channing Tatum admitted that he almost turned down Magic Mike 3, and told the audience that the extreme exercise regime and diet was to blame.

So what’s the Magic Mike diet?

He had to exercise twice a day, and follow a restrictive diet (including giving up salt) and maintain that level of control for months.

He also went on to say that getting lean could take 2 months and then in a matter of “three days, you can lose it” after eating foods he wasn’t allowed to eat during his fitness program.

This is why Channing Tatum is so loveable.

Without actors who speak frankly about the work that goes into looking a certain way, the rest of the world assumes it’s either really easy to look that way or really healthy and both aren’t necessarily true.

You can of course achieve similar results aesthetically but at a very short time frame, some very serious sacrifices have to be made. Ultimately, looking a certain way is dependent on so much more than training and eating well. When it comes to achieving those results longterm, it’s more about habits.

In this blog I’m going to discuss what a healthy body is, how to know if you’re healthy, what kind of training is healthy, and what it takes to look like Magic Mike.

What is a healthy body?

Health looks different for everybody. Some people have a lower body fat than others, some people have higher. For some, achieving a specific look is extremely challenging and for others, not so much.

The recommended body fat for men can range anywhere from 9%-15% and for women 19%-25%. This isn’t to say that anyone who falls outside of that spectrum is “unhealthy”, these are just the averages.

The important thing to understand is that for one person 15% body fat may be easy to maintain without restricting food and extreme workouts while for others, it could mean spending hours counting calories, giving up food groups and obsessing over weighing food.

A healthy body isn’t just about body fat either, its about how the person feels about their bodies and their relationship with food. More on body dysmorphia and disordered eating behaviours in this blog here.

How do you know if you’re healthy?

If you sleep well, have a good amount of energy through out the day, your mood is even, you don’t have any aches and pains anywhere, aren’t easily winded by walking up the stairs and don’t have any illnesses, it’s likely you are healthy.

Being healthy is quite simply being free of pain and disease and most importantly happy. Most people forget that our relationship with food is equally as important when we talk about a “healthy” lifestyle. Someone who can’t eat a meal without weighing it first or without experiencing extreme guilt after every meal is likely experiencing some disordered eating behaviour.

Of course in some circumstances, weighing food may be required to achieve certain results, but there is a difference between mindfully tracking macronutrients in order to achieve short term results and chronically obsessing over every piece of food eaten and being consumed by the thoughts of food and body image.

What type of training is healthy?

Because I work with athletes from different backgrounds I’ll preface this answer with it depends. Each person’s perceived rate of exertion or threshold for pain is different so the question is more about how an individual is able to recover from training rather than the training itself.

Exercise and calorie restrictions can both be a form of stress on the body. Good stress is something that is short lived, enjoyable, and infrequent, while bad stress usually lasts longer, is chronic, and can often leave you feeling totally demoralised and/or anxious (think extreme diets and exercise regimes).

What differentiates a good stress from a bad stress really is your ability to recover from it. If the stressor doesn’t match the ability to recover, it is going to lead to damage. If you’re interested in the recovery process and how it can affect weight loss read this blog here.

So the type of training that is healthy is ultimately is the type of training that an athlete is able to recover from.

“I don’t know how people at 9-5 job actually stay in shape because it’s my full time job, and I can barely do it.”

- Channing Tatum

What does it take to look like Magic Mike?

If you ask someone like my husband, he’d say, not much, and he’s well into middle age, but my husband has great eating habits and incredible genes, not to mention a very boring palette and isn’t a big foodie like me. He drinks beer a few times a week, eats burgers once a week and still kinda looks like Channing Tatum.

If you ask someone like me however, it would take weeks of eating in an extreme calorie deficit and a body fat of around 14% (only because my current body fat is 18% and still don’t have visible abs) which quite frankly is not easy for me to maintain.

What’s important to understand is that all individuals are different and it takes a different amount of work to look a certain way. There are various factors to consider like your genes, your current body composition, your training, your level of stress and your food preference just to name a few.

If you are one of those athletes that eats pretty bland food and you see no problem with eating that way, it will probably be a little easier for you to get after those results, however, if you’re like me (I’d like to think normal) and enjoy tasty food, it might be a little harder.

Ultimately, each person is different and if you have goals to lean out to extreme measures, I’d say it’s pretty important to set realistic expectations of what you can and are willing to do and perhaps consider doing so with a qualified nutrition coach.

The timing of food can help when it comes to deep deficits and recovery.

Does the timing of food you eat matter?

Yup, I’m afraid it does when you get to a body fat percent that low, and if you’re after results like that. The tighter the parameters are, the more specific you have to get with the calculations. Remember we aren’t talking about your average rate of weight loss here we are talking about going to extreme lengths to drop body fat, and doing so very quickly.

The amount of stress that you are likely putting on your body will require you to eat specific macronutrients at the right time so that you can recover well enough to train again the next day.

Nutrient timing is about eating your carbs, fats and protein at the right time to help you refill that glycogen tank and recover better. For more information on nutrient timing check out this blog here.

Conclusion

If you want to achieve that Hollywood look, you can certainly do so but not without a clear strategy.

Seek help from a professional before attempting to drop your body fat to a ‘stage ready’ look and be clear about your expectations.

Entering a cutting phase with a goal of “shredding” within months, is no walk in the park. This isn’t to say that you can’t look that way with a healthier approach, it might just take longer. I know very many athletes that don’t starve themselves, or diet chronically and have impressive body fat percentages.

The differences between crash dieters and athletes that are able to maintain relatively low body fat all year round (without disordered eating behaviour) are healthy eating habits and a solid strategy.

As usual I’ll end this blog with a friendly reminder that seeking to improve your body shouldn’t result in feelings of guilt. Your body is yours, if you want to “shred”, go for it friend, but please remember that your body fat doesn’t reflect your health, you can carry some body fat in specific parts of your body and be perfectly healthy and you can have “visible abs” and still be unhealthy.

The way you look is no reflection of your health, so remember to separate body goals from your health goals, they aren’t the same.